The War Terror eBook

Vaguely now I began to appreciate the terrible significance
of what he had discovered.

“But the letter?” I persisted mechanically.

“The writer of that was quite as shrewd a psychologist
as bacteriologist,” pursued Craig impressively.
“He calculated the moral effect of the letter,
then of Buster’s illness, and finally of reaching
Mrs. Blake herself.”

“You think Dr. Rae Wilson knows nothing of it
yet?” I queried.

Kennedy appeared to consider his answer carefully.
Then he said slowly: “Almost any doctor
with a microscope and the faintest trace of a scientific
education could recognize disease germs either naturally
or feloniously implanted. But when it comes to
the detection of concentrated, filtered, germ-free
toxins, almost any scientist might be baffled.
Walter,” he concluded, “this is not mere
blackmail, although perhaps the visit of that woman
to the Prince Henry—­a desperate thing in
itself, although she did get away by her quick thinking—­perhaps
that shows that these people are ready to stop at
nothing. No, it goes deeper than blackmail.”

I stood aghast at the discovery of this new method
of scientific murder. The astute criminal, whoever
he might be, had planned to leave not even the slender
clue that might be afforded by disease germs.
He was operating, not with disease itself, but with
something showing the ultimate effects, perhaps, of
disease with none of the preliminary symptoms, baffling
even to the best of physicians.

I scarcely knew what to say. Before I realized
it, however, Craig was at last ready for the promised
visit to Mrs. Blake. We went together, carrying
Buster, in his basket, not recovered, to be sure,
but a very different little animal from the dying creature
that had been sent to us at the laboratory.

CHAPTER XXI

THE POISON BRACELET

We reached the Blake mansion and were promptly admitted.
Miss Betty, bearing up bravely under Reginald’s
reassurances, greeted us before we were fairly inside
the door, though she and her brother were not able
to conceal the fact that their mother was no better.
Miss Sears was out, for an airing, and the new nurse,
Miss Rogers, was in charge of the patient.

“How do you feel, this morning?” inquired
Kennedy as we entered the sun-parlor, where Mrs. Blake
had first received us.

A single glance was enough to satisfy me of the seriousness
of her condition. She seemed to be in almost
a stupor from which she roused herself only with difficulty.
It was as if some overpowering toxin were gradually
undermining her already weakened constitution.

She nodded recognition, but nothing further.

Kennedy had set the dog basket down near her wheel-chair
and she caught sight of it.

“Buster?” she murmured, raising her eyes.
“Is—­he—­all right?”

For answer, Craig simply raised the lid of the basket.
Buster already seemed to have recognized the voice
of his mistress, and, with an almost human instinct,
to realize that though he himself was still weak and
ill, she needed encouragement.